AN AWARD-winning photographer, now in his eighties, is still showing the youngsters how to do it.

Ray Wallace Thompson, 85, is renowned as one of the best amateur snappers in the world, and this week he proved his prowess with the lens once again by scooping a top prize in a global photographic competition.

His atmospheric dusk shot of a Staithes fisherman returning home after a hard day's trawling won the gold medal in the small pictures section of the 2002 International Photographic Exhibition of the Photographic Society of America.

In 1999 Ray was made an honorary member of the society in recognition of his lifetime achievements. The former architect, from Eaglescliffe, Stockton, started snapping when he picked up a box Brownie in his youth.

He said: "Normally the pictures I take please me and no-one else. It does your ego an awful lot of good to win, especially at my age."

He described his winning shot, taken at the North Yorkshire fishing village earlier this year. He said: "I was taking pictures in a street in the late afternoon when there was practically no light. A fisherman was just walking past to go home and I thought, 'perfect', and took the picture."